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Monday, 30 April 2012

Size Matter

Size matters. The size of a painting or image is something that does affect the viewing of it. It is difficult to explain why I know. If you see an image of a painting in a book or these days on the internet then you get an expectation of the real thing. I recall this happened to me.
As a boy I had seen pictures of the work of Van Vermeer (Girl with the Pearl Earring and the Milk maid above). What I was not prepared for was when I saw his works they were comparatively small. The Milk maid above is 16ins x 18 ins. This does not detract from the technique or skill involved in painting them in fact it is harder to paint detail on that scale. But for me the paintings were lost and I felt cheated.
I still love his work but I do wish he had painted them bigger.